The Great Forrest Gump Debate

[The Large One]

The Time Out review of Forrest Gump

Played by Tom Hanks with a sing-song Southern drawl and an evangelical earnestness, Gump is the quintessential simpleton, his only characteristic the inert righteousness instilled in him by his mama (Sally-Ann Field).

Gump's story is as extraordinary as he is banal. He conducts us on what amounts to a virtual-reality tour of late twentieth century American history. Beneath its baby-boomer soundtrack, its restive feel-good aesthetic and conventional liberal veneer, this is a dismayingly reactionary work. Consider Forrest's one true love, Jenny (Robin Wright), a 'nice' girl who takes a wrong turn when she abandons home for showbusiness.

Throughout director Zemeckis contrasts Gump's charmed progress with Jenny's unhappy engagement with the counter culture. It's only when she's dying that Jenny realises she should have stayed with Forrest all along. He's asexual, square and a tedious conversationalist, but God knows he loves his mother - as this mawkish conservative movie ultimately goes to prove: ignorance is bliss. Winner of a raft of Oscars.

 

[The Large One]

The Time Out review of Schindler's List

The film of Thomas Keneally's novel is Spielberg's finest since Jaws. The elastic editing and grainy camerawork lend an immediacy as surprising as the shockingly matter-of-fact depiction of violence and casual killing.

And Spielberg can handle actors - Neeson as Schindler, the German (actually born in Austro-Hungarian empire, but really ethnic Sudeten or Czechoslovakian - but who's counting) profiteer whose use of cheap labour in his Krakow factory saved 1,100 Jews from death; Kingsley as Stern, the canny accountant; Fiennes as Goeth, bloodless commandant of Plaszow camp.

Wisely, the director rarely seeks to simplify the mysterious complexity of Schindler, an opportunist whose deeds became giddily selfless. As in his earlier work, there's a sense of wonder at the inexplicable, but it's no longer childlike. At times the film becomes a scream of horror at the inhumanity it recalls and recreates, and the b/w images never become aesthetically sanitised.

True, the Jews are huddled, victimised masses. True, too, that Spielberg finally relents and tries to 'explain' Schindler so that the last hour becomes steadily more simplistic and sentimental. Otherwise, however, it's a noble achievement, and essential viewing.

 

[Nibble]

The Time Out review of Schindler's List

The film of Thomas Keneally's novel is Spielberg's finest since Jaws. The elastic editing and grainy camerawork lend an immediacy as surprising as the shockingly matter-of-fact depiction of violence and casual killing.

And Spielberg can handle actors - Neeson as Schindler, the German (actually born in Austro-Hungarian empire, but really ethnic Sudeten or Czechoslovakian - but who's counting) profiteer whose use of cheap labour in his Krakow factory saved 1,100 Jews from death; Kingsley as Stern, the canny accountant; Fiennes as Goeth, bloodless commandant of Plaszow camp.

Wisely, the director rarely seeks to simplify the mysterious complexity of Schindler, an opportunist whose deeds became giddily selfless. As in his earlier work, there's a sense of wonder at the inexplicable, but it's no longer childlike. At times the film becomes a scream of horror at the inhumanity it recalls and recreates, and the b/w images never become aesthetically sanitised.

True, the Jews are huddled, victimised masses. True, too, that Spielberg finally relents and tries to 'explain' Schindler so that the last hour becomes steadily more simplistic and sentimental. Otherwise, however, it's a noble achievement, and essential viewing.

Pretty much my take on the film.

 

[The Large One]

And finally...

The Time Out review of The Shawshank Redemption

In 1946 a young New England banker, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and sentenced to life at the Shawshank State Prison - twice over. Quiet and introspective, he gradually strikes up a friendship with the prison 'fixer', Red (Morgan Freeman), and over the next two decades wins the trust of the governor and guards, but in his heart, he still yearns for freedom.

Darabont's adaptation of a Stephen King novella is a throwback to the kind of serious, literate drama Hollywood used to make (Birdman of Alcatraz, say) though the big spiritual resolution takes some swallowing - ditto the colour-blind relationships within the prison and the violent disavowal of any homosexual implications.

Against this weighs the pleasure of discovering a first-time director with evident respect for the intelligence of his audience, brave enough to let character details accumulate without recourse to the fast-forward button.

Darabont plays the long game and wins: this is an engrossing, superbly acted yarn, while the Shawshank itself is a truly formidable mausoleum.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Thanks Alan.

All 3 of those Time Out reviews are just about spot on, for me.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJcdd3ofEOQ

 

[Mendoza]

It is on Film4 Now